You may feel tongue-tied and nervous around men. Perhaps you feel pressured because you are always looking for a romantic relationship. Perhaps you feel uncomfortable because you don’t feel like you can relate to men. Remember that a man is a person with thoughts, feelings, and beliefs just like you, and you can learn to connect with him beyond his masculinity and to who he is as a human being. To do this, you can develop your own self-confidence to feel more secure in yourself while you are around guys. You can improve your conversational skills so that you can talk to a man and find common ground with him. You can also make more male friends and make connections with guys that are not just romantic in nature.

Steps

Method1

Developing Self-Confidence

1

Carry yourself with confidence. Stand up straight and tall. Even if you don’t feel confident, you can fake it. No one will be able to tell the difference, and pretty soon, you will start feeling more confident, too!

Use confident body language. Shake hands, smile, and avoid fidgeting or playing with your hair, which makes you appear uncomfortable.[1]

Make eye contact. Look at the person you are talking to. You do not need to stare at them intently (to do so would be rather off-putting to the other person). It’s okay to break eye contact every once in a while. But make sure you are primarily looking the person in the eyes, or at least looking somewhere on their face if direct eye contact makes you too uncomfortable.[2]

2

Dress in clothes you love. Wear clothes you feel confident, comfortable, or sexy in. Wearing something that makes you feel and look good will give your self-confidence a little boost.[3]

Make sure you are dressed appropriately for the occasion. You will feel less confident if you are wearing the “wrong” clothing. If you are unsure what to wear to an event, check with a friend or colleague about what might be appropriate.

Learn more about dress codes and what you might be expected to wear for certain events. For example, jeans and a cute top are appropriate for a casual party, a party dress might work for a more formal social event, and understand your employer’s dress code to make sure what you wear to work fits within its parameters. You’ll feel more confident if your look “fits” the vibe of the environment.

You could ask, “Do you know what the dress code is for this event? What are you going to be wearing?”

3

Be yourself. Don’t pretend to be someone you’re not just to be attractive to men. While you may need to “fake” being confident to understand how confidence feels, this doesn’t mean you should change other aspects of your personality just to attract someone to you. The men you want in your life will appreciate you for who you are, not someone you ought to be.[4]

Let your unique, interesting personality shine through. Are you funny? Show off your sense of humor! Are you involved in your community or a live music aficionado? Talk about your interests proudly. If someone doesn’t like you for you, they are not worth your time!

Stay relaxed when talking to men and don’t feel like you need to prove something. If you are having a difficult time, you could pretend that you are talking to your brother or cousin.

Smile your genuine, beautiful smile. It helps others find you more approachable, and it has the added bonus of decreasing your stress level, even if you are nervous![5]

4

Turn off your inner critic. Try not to be so hard on yourself. Realize that other people are probably not thinking about you or judging you nearly as much as you believe them to be.[6]

Keep a positive attitude. Don’t worry if you make a mistake or say something dumb. Laugh it off and move on. People are more attracted to others who convey confidence and who don’t seem concerned with what others think about them.

Consider the following scenario: Say you are at a party and you spill something all over yourself that leaves an obvious stain. What conveys more confidence, pointing out the mess and saying how clumsy you are, or laughing it off and forgetting about it? Staying positive and not beating yourself up will help you have more fun!

While alcohol and drugs can make you feel disinhibited, do not resort to using substances to make you feel this way.[7]

5

Find confident female role models. Take a look at confident women around your workplace or at a social event. They will radiate confidence throughout the room, and project a sense of feeling comfortable in their own skin. Watch what they do, and what makes them so at ease. Try to mimic their behavior.[8]

Remember, fake it ‘til you make it. Trying out new behaviors can feel uncomfortable and awkward for a while, but if you are consistent in your practice, you may soon feel like they’re a part of who you are.

Consider asking a friend whose confidence you admire what she does to make herself appear so confident. For example, you could say, “I’m always so impressed by how confident you appear in social situations. What’s your secret?”

6

Take care of yourself. Eat well and exercise. Feeling healthy is a great confidence boost.[9]

Eating healthy can help you feel better about yourself, knowing that you are making good choices for your body. Sometimes the food we eat impacts our moods as well. Eating better may help you maintain a more elevated mood: reducing sugar consumption may help you avoid blood sugar crashes, for example.[10]

If you want to get in shape, it will give you more self-confidence to train for an event and accomplish something, rather than reach a number on a scale. Consider signing up for a race or a long-distance cycling event, for example. When you cross the finish line, you will feel proud of yourself for achieving something awesome!

7

Find your self-worth from within. Don’t base your self-esteem on others’ opinion of you or on the things that you have. Don’t think more or less of yourself if you have a significant other or you don’t.[11]

Value the character of your heart over external factors that are easily taken away, like romantic relationships, or how much is in your bank account. Embrace your integrity, compassion, and generosity instead.

Method2

Improving Your Conversational Abilities

1

Find common interests. Search for common interests or common ground with the man you are talking to. Searching for common ground may require different questions for different settings.[12]

For example, if you’re talking to a coworker, you could ask about projects they are working on, if they work with a friend of yours, or what they like (or don’t like) about their position. You could say, “I heard you got promoted last month. How do you like your new position?”

If you are talking to someone at a party, you could ask how they know the party host, if they live nearby, or what they do for a living. You could say, “How do you know Jack? He and I have known each other since high school.”

If you are on a date, you could ask him about his interests, where he grew up, or his career and life goals. You could ask, “If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you like to visit?”

2

Listen. Most people love good listeners… it gives them a great opportunity to talk about themselves! In fact, good listeners are generally viewed more positively following a conversation, because the speaker was given space to talk about themselves. The feelings generated from talking about yourself are the same feelings of pleasure you can receive from food or money.[13]

Let the other person know you are listening by reflecting back what they say. For example, if your date says, “I have a terrible commute. I’m in my car for hours every day,” you could say, “That sounds really stressful!” This also helps the conversation move deeper, which is important if you want to get to know someone better.[14]

3

Ask questions.Ask open-ended questions to further the conversation. Questions that can be answered with a “yes” or “no” can sometimes make it hard to continue the conversation, if the person you are speaking with is not particularly forthcoming.[15]

For example, asking “What was your family like growing up?” can take the conversation in a bunch of different directions. Asking “Do you have any brothers or sisters?” can be answered with a very brief response.

Ask follow-up questions like “How did that make you feel?” or “What happened next?” to continue the conversation.

4

Share interesting stories. Talk about yourself, too. Let others get to know you. Telling your own stories conveys confidence, because you are using your own voice to speak about your own experience. Speak up and be proud of your life and who you are.[16]

If you tend to get nervous or shy when talking to people, it may help you to think of some things to say ahead of time. Know your audience and decide what might be appropriate conversation topics (you probably don’t want to bring up ex-boyfriends, for example).

Think of your most interesting, engaging material. You could tell some funny stories, talk about your travel adventures, tell stories about your pets, or interesting tales about the time you met a celebrity or went skydiving, for example.

Wait for a lull in conversation, then you could say something like, “I had the strangest thing happen to me the other day,” then tell your story. Or, you could piggyback on the current topic of conversation and say, “That reminds me of the time I….” Make sure you don’t monopolize the conversation, and find a way to steer it back to other listeners when your story is over.

Method3

Making Connections with Men

1

Talk to more men. Make male friends. Chat with guys just to make conversation. The more comfortable you are interacting with men, the more confident you will be. Talk to men in low-pressure situations to build your confidence. That way, you will feel more prepared for dates or other encounters where you may be more likely to be nervous.[17]

Joke with men or flirt with them, if you are comfortable.

Join a club or a sports league in order to make new guy friends.

Try making chitchat in casual settings: waiting for the copy machine at work, in line at the coffee shop, or at the gym.

2

Avoid placing too much importance on men. Men are great, and having male friends, colleagues, and lovers in your life can enrich it. But do not place so much weight on “having a man” that you neglect or devalue other aspects of your life.

Don’t attach romantic expectations to every man. Society often gives women the message that being in a romantic relationship with a man is the most important thing, but this can put a lot of pressure on women and, thus, can make them feel less confident around men.

Treat a man as a potential friend first, and as a potential romance only after you get to know him. It can be hard to break this pattern of thought after so many cultural messages that reinforce it.

Try telling yourself, “We are both human beings with the same feelings at our core. I would like to try to get to know this person better and be friends with them.”

3

Learn about gender similarities. Studies show that being male or female has little impact on personality, cognition, or leadership ability. While you may feel that “men are from Mars,” the reality is that you may have more in common with them than you think.[18]

Researchers think that most of the differences between men and women are the result of gender norms and expectations, and the environment in which people were raised that influenced our behaviors.[19]

Our brains are a patchwork of “male” and “female” characteristics. Researchers examining both male and female brains found that most people had brains that were hybrids of male and female brain structure. For example, men typically have more connections front to back, which enhances perception and leads to taking action. Women typically have more connections going left and right across the two halves of the brain, which improves their ability to synthesize information and draw conclusions. The brains scientists studied all had wide varieties of these characteristics, regardless of whether the brain belonged to a man or a woman.[20]

Community Q&A

Try to keep yourself distracted with something else: work, school, or other friends. As time passes, you may find this focus developing into a habit, and your crush will stop feeling so important in your life.

He could be an introverted person and maybe feel less comfortable meeting new people. You could talk to him again and see if he warms up to you. He may also be interested in you and not sure how to talk to you about it.